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Fish and Al Gore

I’ve had some comments on my blog in this post – Fish unaware of global warming hoax – that have raised too many points for me to address in a comment alone, so I am writing a new post specifically for this.

In my post I wrote about a new paper by Cheung et al. in a scientific journal which quantifies the stamp of global warming on the world’s fisheries.

Doug suggested that this was junk science and directed me to WUWT. I went and read WUWT to see what he was referring to. Anthony Watts has written a blog post suggesting that this is nonsense because the world’s sea surface temperatures have not risen for 19+ years. I’m not going to bother addressing whether sea surface temperatures have risen or not, if anyone wants to find out for themselves I recommend a scientific journal like this – Global and North Atlantic climate trends over the past ~150 years.

So why am I not going to address this claim specifically? It’s simple really: fish do not swim at the surface. Now it’s possible that I’m wrong and that every time I’ve gone out on a boat the fish have hightailed it away from the surface just to make me think they don’t swim there. So I thought I’d better get some data to back up my claim. Here’s the mean catch depth for each ocean:

As I have said before, I think it is perfectly reasonable to take issue with a scientific paper but it first requires that you read the entire paper and not the abstract or a flawed analysis at WUWT. So if Doug says the Cheung paper is junk science, he needs to address the evidence and say why it is flawed. Is there an error in their calculations? Is there a flaw in the methodology? It’s no good telling me the paper is junk science because Anthony Watts thinks it is or because some other paper suggested that warmer waters will make sharks more aggressive.

Another comment I want to address is from Eve:

“Al Gore,
Rhymes with bore,
Started it all.”

Joseph Fourier was the first to argue of the existence of the greenhouse effect in 1824. I’m pretty sure Al Gore wasn’t around back then.

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16Comments

Global warning itself isn’t in dispute here, just whether it’s as significant and catastrophic as you say.
Al Gore did start the current interference by governments in our lives. Just listen to Rudd’s 2007 talks pre and post the election, swept away by An Inconvenient Truth. One example, I know.
You are lucky in New Zealand in that you are out of post-Kyoto and have a minuscule carbon tax, and a financial surplus next year – amazing management by your government!

Rachel,
I thought I was only pointing out that some reputable others were saying that Cheung et al is junk science but I won’t hide behind Anthony Watts’
“Skirt”.It is important that WUWT Climate Audit and expert commentators are listened to,otherwise peer reviewed papers escape scrutiny and Climategate showed how some climate scientists tried to shut down scientific discussion,and ban journals.
Coincidentally, Professor Greg Mellish flays academia on this point in today’s Weekend Australian,”The Government and their academic allies use a number of tactics to achieve this goal ( to dictate to those they seek to treat as ignorant bogans).One is to delegitimise anyone who is not considered to be an expert in the field……It has been used to attack climate sceptics by claiming that they do not publish in the peer reviewed journals that are controlled by the climate alarmists.”
I have read widely on this very issue of Ocean Heat content.The topic is one of the most widely covered in recent years.I read abstracts of Journal Papers, exchanges between scientists, alarmist (Skepticalscience,Real Climate, the Conversation etc.)and sceptical blogs ( Watts up with That,Climate Audit,etc.) What do you read? Only pay-walled journal papers?No exchanges such as between Trenberth and Pielke Snr on Pielke’s blog,where they politely exchange comments ideas and criticisms of Levitus et al ,Hansen et al,etc?
The very graph you sent from NODC/NOAA is the subject of severe criticism on WUWT,occasioned by a tip from Pielke Snr.See “Fact Check for Andrew Glickson- Ocean heat has paused too”, February 25, 2013, by Anthony Watts, and Roger Pielke Snr.”Comment on ….. Levitus et al 2012″, April 22, 2012.
The clincher is the graph at http://oceans .pmel.noaa.gov/
Reliable data from 2003/2004 with the Argo buoys according to Lyman et al 2010 shows minimal if any warming for a decade.The prior data for 1955 on may be simply too sketchy and unreliable.See also the numerous peer reviewed papers by Pielke Snr et al listed in his several posts at his blog calling into question Hansen et al 2005 and following papers.
The comments at WUWT may or may not be flawed but if you don’t read them ,you will remain uninformed on matters that are controversial.You won’t expand your knowledge at Desmogblog or any of the faux WUWTs.

Have you read any of the investigations of the climategate affair? I’m guessing that no you haven’t, because you still seem to think that those emails have revealed some evidence of attempts to shutdown the scientific process. On the charge of subversion of the peer review process, the CCE review concludes (http://www.cce-review.org/):

“In our judgement none of the above instances represents subversion of the peer
review process nor unreasonable attempts to influence the editorial policy of
journals. It might be thought that this reflects a pattern of behaviour that is partial
and aggressive, but we think it more plausible that it reflects the rough and tumble
of interaction in an area of science that has become heavily contested and where
strongly opposed and aggressively expressed positions have been taken up on both
sides. The evidence from an editor of a journal in an often strongly contested area
such as medicine (Appendix 5) suggests that such instances are common and that
they do not in general threaten the integrity of peer review or publication.”

“Our predecessor Committee concluded that the evidence they saw did not suggest that Professor Jones was trying to subvert the peer review process and that academics should not be criticised for making informal comments on academic papers.104

“The conclusions reached by the Independent Climate Change E-mails Review
(ICCER) are in line with our predecessor Committee’s findings that “the evidence they
saw did not suggest that Professor Jones was trying to subvert the peer review process and that academics should not be criticised for making informal comments on
academic papers”. We stand by this conclusion and are satisfied with the detailed
analysis of the allegations by the ICCER.”

On the subject of scientific debate, I would expect there to be a great deal of healthy debate amongst scientists who understand the topic. It is obvious from the discussion in this blog at nature.com that it is indeed happening – http://blogs.nature.com/ofschemesandmemes/2013/05/02/npg-journal-club-how-has-earths-climate-changed-in-the-past-2000-years-npgjclub/ – and that Steve McIntyre doesn’t understand the process. The paper being discussed there was submitted for peer review. The 3 anonymous reviewers submitted 12 pages of comments (6300 words). The authors addressed those comments and submitted 6 pages back. The second round of review included a 4th reviewer and they put forth 6 more pages of comments. The authors responded with 3 pages of comments. Just because debate like this is not visible to you or readers of WUWT, it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

If you were debating a contentious legal issue, would you debate with someone who didn’t understand the technicalities of law? Like me, for example? Of course not.

Rachel,
I forgot to refer you to Bob Tisdale’s post on WUWT ,”NODC’s Pentadal Ocean Heat content (0 to 2000m) creates Warming that doesn’t exist in the Annual data-a lot of warming”.March 13,2013. This addresses the earlier data (and your graph.)The conclusion has Mr Tisdale’s recommendations to NODC on how to correct the errors.Perhaps it could employ him!

The other thing I want to say is this, suppose I’ve just written a book and I want to get it published. I send it off to a publisher. After a period of time, they write back to me rejecting my manuscript. I wouldn’t suddenly assume that there’s a big conspiracy and the publishers are trying to silence my views. The more likely conclusion I would draw is that my manuscript is crap.

Ben has had a number of papers peer reviewed and published. He’s also had a number of papers rejected. This is very common. The reviewers will usually provide lots of comments some of which Ben will agree with and some of which he won’t. This is more evidence that scientific debate is alive and well.

Rachel,
On your latest post on peer review,may I commend Professor David Deeming’s defence of Professor Don Easterbrook of WWU (whom he has never met) after recent attack by members of the WWU fraternity for expressing sceptical views about global warming.It is readily available on the net.
Here is the relevant passage on the state of peer review, after he points out that global warming is not so much a scientific theory subject to empirical falsification as it is a political ideology that must be fiercely defended in defiance of every fact to the contrary-
“At the heart of the Geology faculty criticisms was the claim that peer review creates reliable and objective knowledge.Nonsense. Peer review creates opinions.Scientists like other people have political beliefs, ideological orientations and personal views that strain their scientific objectivity.One of the most disgusting things to emerge from the 2009 climategate e-mails was the revelation of an attempt to subvert the peer review process by suppressing the publication of work that was scientificically sound,but contrary to the reviewers personal views.”
The infamous phrase “hide the decline ” refers to an instance where a global warming alarmist omitted data that contradicted his personal belief that the world was warming.This sort of bias is not limited but pervasive.Neither is science a foolproof method of producing absolute truth.Scientific knowledge is always tentative and subject to revision .The entire history of science is littered with discarded theories once thought to be incontrovertible truth.”
I will deal separately with your earlier post,on investigations into Climategate later.No, I don’t believe any of the “enquiries ” arrived at the truth .All were transparent whitewashes.The CRU e-mails allow 2 conclusions which should have been obvious to any investigator-
“1.Senior climatologists sought to undermine the peer review process and bully journals into suppressing dissenting views. This results in scientific literature no longer being representative of the state of human knowledge about the climate.
2. The IPCC Reports the outcome of a process in which a relatively small group of scientists produce a biased review of a literature they themselves have colluded to distort through gate keeping and intimidation .The e- mails establish a pattern of behaviour that is completely at odds with what the public has been told regarding the integrity of climate science, and the rigour of the IPCC report writing process.It is clear that the public can no longer believe what they have been told.”
( h/t A.W.Montford in his summary of the Climategate affair).
These findings would have been a more credible outcome of the enquiries.

I could consider the possibility of one investigation being a “transparent whitewash”. Maybe even two or three. But eight? If I thought that all eight of them were so without reading any of them, I’d sound a bit like our friend nailujanoreg above.

“Critics of CRU have suggested that Professor Jones’s use of the words “hide the
decline” is evidence that he was part of a conspiracy to hide evidence that did not fit his
view that recent global warming is predominantly caused by human activity. That he
has published papers—including a paper in Nature—dealing with this aspect of the
science clearly refutes this allegation. In our view, it was shorthand for the practice of
discarding data known to be erroneous. We expect that this is a matter the Scientific
Appraisal Panel will address.”

If professor Jones was trying to hide something, why would he publish the known problem in a scientific journal? What a stupid way to hide something! But because I am sceptical and like to check things, it’s possible that The British House of Commons just made this up. So I went to the journals and checked. Sure enough, in a paper published in 2004 – http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003RG000143/abstract – he writes:

“Recent work making use of climate
reconstructions from such trees has typically sought to
remove such influences prior to use in climate reconstruction [Mann et al., 1999; Mann and Jones, 2003]. Other
factors have been suggested as possible explanations for
apparent anomalous tree ring/climate relationships [see
Briffa et al., 1998a], including the changing seasonality of
the climate itself [Vaganov et al., 1999; Biondi, 2000;
Druckenbrod et al., 2003]. The potential existence of such
nonstationary relationships introduces an additional caveat
in the use of tree ring data alone for climate reconstruction,
since changes in environmental factors in the past could
have introduced similar, unknown changes in tree ring
response to climate.”

His research unit is also not the only one on the planet compiling temperature records. There are two other independent units (that I know of, perhaps there are more) and they all show the same pattern.

What complaint have you got with the British House of Commons report? I presume that you verified whatever was being written on the topic at WUWT.

Hi Johnny,
It is old! Back then I suppose no-one took much notice because there was little observable change. Now that the ice is really melting and the Earth is really warming, people are starting to listen. Still, scientists have been trying to communicate the problem for over half a century without much success.

Rachel
To deal with an aside of yours first.The conservatives in Great Britain are members of the “Greenest Government ever “, to use their last election slogan .Lost in a green miasma, the UK Parliament in 2008 passed the Climate Change Act by a vote of 453 to 3.Only one conservative ,a former Thatcher Cabinet Minister ,Peter Lilley spoke against the bill and asked the House the cost of its requirement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050. He is still speaking about the insanity of the exercise but conservatives are now finding out the cost as more than 20 billion GBP per annum,indefinitely for no measurable result.Hopefully Australia and NZ follow Canada in avoiding their disaster.
On your central point ,remind me which are the 8 enquiries you keep speaking about .I know of Muir Russell,Oxburgh and the 2 UK Parliament reviews.The Penn State enquiry, such as it was ,looks like getting reviewed in the litigation Michael Mann has initiated in the U.S. Courts against Nation Review Online and Mark Steyn,for suggesting Penn State were ,less than robust in their inquiry.
What do I have against the British House of Commons Report? This is best answered by referring you to the GWPF Report by Andrew Montford, “The Climategate Inquiries “.Read in particular Lord Turnbull’s introduction, and paragraphs 36 to 44 on the trick to hide the decline.The select Committee appears to have accepted scientists can leave out important information about the reliability of their results when presenting findings to policy makers,Further,the Select Committee appears to have been confused about the nature of the divergence problem,and the Scientific Appraisal Panel failed to investigate the issue.
Do you understand what “Mike’s Nature Trick ” was?Do you know what the “Decline ” was that Phil Jones was seeking to hide?
To quote Montford at para 37,”The issue revolved around a tree ring series that had been used to reconstruct temperatures of the past ,the so called Briffa MXD reconstruction.This series diverged dramatically from temperature records in the second half of the 20th century experiencing a sharp decline during a period when instrumental temperatures were rising.Showing this divergence would have raised a major question mark over the reliability of tree ring temperature reconstructions since if there is a divergence between tree rings and instrumental records in recent times, it cannot be said with any certainty that such divergences did not also occur in the past,rendering the temperature reconstruction of questionable utility.
38. The steps that Jones took to deal with this so called divergence problem are well documented and are undisputed.In the second half of the 20th century,the declining tree ring data was deleted and replaced with increasing instrumental temperatures ( shades of Marcott et al – my comment).A smoothing algorithm was then applied to this new spliced record obscuring the join between the two.In this way the unreliability of these reconstructions was obscured from the readers of the WMO report.”
Montford then deals with Jones denial that he wasn’t seeking to conceal the truth from the readers and viewers of the WMO Report and
graph, in paras 39 and 40. Jones asserts that he alerted readers in every subsequent paper from UEA .Montford points out there is no mention of the divergence problem in several papers including Jones et al 1998, and Mann and Jones 2003, which are seminal papers.
“41. Jones statements appear to suggest that he believes it is acceptable to hide important factual information from the readers of public policy reports so long as the fact that the information that has been hidden has been disclosed in the specialist literature.
42. In their conclusions the Committee fail to repudiate Jones’ use of a “trick to hide the decline”,apparently condoning his actions.This appears to be an open invitation to experts to misrepresent the scientific literature when communicating with policy makers and the public.”
Rachel,read Fred Pearce in the Guardian on Montford’sReport (September 14,2012) where he acknowledges that his criticisms hit home.Also a similar complimentary report in the Times Higher Education Supplement on 20 January 2011, by Paul Jump.
I repeat that the Inquiries whether 8 or fewer were not impartial ,were shoddy, incomplete,and gullible in accepting implausible explanations from major players while ignoring questions served up by sceptics.The inquiries were always destined to exculpate the CRU scientists.I note one of the Muir Russell panel was excluded for stating before the hearing that the scientists were innocent.
Lastly the divergence problem hasn’t gone away as Hockey stick papers continue to pollute science .We haven’t heard the last on the climategate
scandal.

Ben encourages his undergraduate students to use “tricks” all the time. It does not mean ruse. It means a clever way of solving a problem. If you go and search the scientific journals you will see the word “trick” appearing in this way in a broad spectrum of disciplines.

In my comment above, I copied a paragraph from a paper written by Phil Jones in a paper published in 2004 in which he discusses the tree ring divergence problem. I’ll quote him again but this time I’ll shorten the quote for you:
“The potential existence of such
nonstationary relationships introduces an additional caveat
in the use of tree ring data alone for climate reconstruction,
since changes in environmental factors in the past could
have introduced similar, unknown changes in tree ring
response to climate.”

He seems to be saying that the problem they are observing now may also have happened in the past and so introduced similar, unknown changes. Why don’t you accept this? Do you dispute that it exists in this paper? If so, I am happy to email it to you. Or do you dispute my interpretation?

I think the very fact that the set of people who want to limit the amount of warming that eventuates through burning of fossil fuels consists of people from across the political spectrum is proof that it is not motivated by ideology. Rather the set of people who want to do nothing about it at all and pass the problem onto to future generations consists only of hard right-wing fundamentalists suggests to me that these people are motivated by ideology.

Rahel,
No doubt ,as you say, the word “trick”can be used in the literature to mean a clever way of solving a problem .I don’t doubt that the scientific literature in a broad range of disciplines shows the use of the word “trick ” in that way .I don’t even doubt that Jones can point to papers containing the caveat in the very words that you set out ,and I am sure that Montford acknowledges that.He does so in the paras 39 and 40 that I did not type in full,but paraphrased.He was only there contesting the statement by Jones that he ALWAYS in his UEA papers directed attention to the divergence problem.
The point that Montford is highlighting is whether the “trick “was used to solve a problem or to “hide” a problem ,to adopt your own words.
When Jones was asked in evidence by Evan Haris whether the sentence ,” I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last twenty years (I.e. from 1981 onwards), and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline” was used by him in a dishonest fashion to keep hidden from the reader the divergence problem,he explained,
” We do not accept that it was hidden because it was discussed in a paper in the year before, and we have discussed it in every paper on tree rings and climate.”
But the policy maker reading the Summary for Policy makers and seeing the iconic hockey stick graph with its skyrocketing 20th Century upward curve is of course totally unaware of discussion of the divergence problem adverted to in the Nature paper by Jones the year before.He is simply misled into thinking he is seeing incontrovertible proof that the tree ring proxy data shows unprecedented rising temperature.There is no asterisk to alert the reader that he is looking in effect at two graphs.
Here is the problem continuing into 2006 and the second order draft of the UN IPCC’s AR 4.Steve McIntyre was a reviewer of the 4th Assessment report (Yes the author of ClimateAudit!)and had pleaded with the Editors to show the offending graph in its full nature i.e continue the proxy data from either 1961 or 1981 with the decline it displayed.Here is John Mitchell the IPCC Editor raising the problem with Eystein Jansen and Jonathen Overpeck,two senior IPCC scientists,again from the Climategate e- mails-
“Mitchell 21 June 2006,
…..I had a quick look at the comments on the Hockeystick,and include below the questions that need to be addressed which I hope will help the discussions.I do believe we need a clear answer to the sceptics.I have also copied these comments to Jean Jouzel ( the other Review Editor)…
1.There needs to be a clear statement of why the instrumental and proxy data are shown on the same graph.The issue of why we don’t show the proxy data for the last few decades ( they don’t show continued warming) but assume they are valid for early warm periods needs to be explained.
2.There are a number of methodological issues which need a clear response…Our response should consider all the issues for both MBH (the Hockey Stick paper ) and the overall chapter conclusions . a.The role of Bristlecomb data:is it reliable? Is it necessary to include this data to arrive at the conclusion that recent warmth is unprecedented? b. Is the PC analysis approach robust ? are the results statistically significant? It seems to me that in the case of MBH the answer in each is no.It is not clear how robust and significant the recent approaches are….”
Here we have the extraordinary situation that senior IPCC scientists know that the proxy records show no warming in recent decades.Mitchell felt it needed to be explained .It is clear from AR4 that no one took up this critical issue.The information that proxy records do not show any warming has been suppressed.
Worse these officials signed off the paleoclimate chapter of AR4 as a reasonable assessment of the evidence while believing the Hockeystick used a biased methodology and gave results that were not statistically significant.
So now President Obama and 191 world leaders believe the science is beyond dispute.Can you see why the climategate e-mails are so important ,why I am so concerned and why the dismissive attitude of the official reports is so misguided?

Rachel ,
You expressed incredulity that I could find the 8 inquiries into Climategate to be “transparent whitewashes”.The link you gave me to Wikipedia -“Climatic Research Unit controversy” identifies seven named Inquiries but the Penn State Inquiry has 2 parts, “First Panel “, and “Second Panel”, making up the 8 of which you speak.So I think we are now “on the same page”.
Let me point out the following facts on the 2 Penn State “inquiries ” which might reasonably have you concede they were grossly flawed and do not justify being called investigations ,or inquiries in any meaningful sense.
I refer you to the actual reports themselves (available online ) for their findings ,and Clive Crook’s merciless debunking of the 2 inquiries in The Atlantic Monthly, ” Climategate and the Big Green Lie” at http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/print/2010/07/climategate-and-the-big-green-lie/59709/
1.Penn State made the fatuous findings that Mann’s success in bringing revenue to the university and accolades from his peers necessarily meant that any misconduct on his part was necessarily precluded.
2,The Atlantic – “The Penn State inquiry exonerating Michael Mann – the palaeontologist who came up with “the hockeystick”-would be difficult to parody.Three of four allegations were dismissed out of hand at the outset: the inquiry announces that, for” lack of credible evidence”, it will not even investigate them.You think I exaggerate?….(From the Report: “Had Dr. Mann’s conduct been outside the range of accepted practices,it would have been impossible for him to receive so many awards and recognitions which typically involve intense scrutiny from scientists who may or may not agree with his scientific conclusions…Clearly Dr. Mann ‘s reporting of his research has been successful and judged to be outstanding by his peers.This would have been impossible had his activities been outside of accepted practices in his field.”)
“In short the case for the prosecution is never heard.Mann is asked if the allegations (well one of them ) are true,and says no….” (Per Clive Crook’s article).
3.The 5 employees of Penn State having dismissed three of the 4 specific allegations of scientific fraud which they were charged to investigate read 376 e-mails written by Mann and dismissed 329 of them.After this they conducted a two hour interview with Mann (the transcript of which may or may not be extant, a requirement of PennState investigation protocols).He denied any wrongdoing.They next interviewed 2 outside climatologists noted in the report for their personal friendship with Mann and support of his science.Naturally these two friends supported Mann.Next they interviewed Professor Lindzen of MIT,who accused them of ignoring the most important allegations.They ignored him and moved on ,saying expressly in the Report,”We did not respond to him.”
4. So not having investigated three quarters of the allegations against him and not having interviewed any party critical of Mann,they found Mann had done nothing wrong.
5. Finally President Spanier of Penn State is quoted as saying,
“I know they’ve taken the time and spent hundreds of hours studying documents and interviewing people and looking at issues from all sides”.
All patently false.Contrary to Spanier’s claim they did not make the slightest effort to talk to any critics or even neutral observers.
6. Their finding ,”The so called” trick”was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different data sets together in a legitimate fashion BY A TECHNIQUE THAT HAS BEEN REVIEWED BY ABROAD ARRAY OF PEERS IN THE FIELD” is untrue on a variety levels .The trick is not a legitimate statistical method ; it’s essence is the failure to show adverse data.You can read the particulars at Climate Audit’s post by Steve McIntyre, The Mann Report,Feb 3 ,2010.
7. The Report’s statement that Dr. Mann was the subject of an in depth inquiry in 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences as to whether he had similarly deviated from accepted research practices is false.The NAS Panel drew up terms of reference that specifically excluded such an investigation.
8. Lastly the only evidence said to have been considered by the inquiry was what was already in the public record.They did not examine any of Mann’s correspondence that was not on the public record,apparently.RA -10 (Penn State rules for academic inquiries) says, “Relevant research records ,documents ,and or materials shall be immediately sequestered.” This does not appear to have been done.
President Spanier was later dismissed from his $813, 000 a year job for negligence in overseeing another later inquiry at Penn State into a different matter.
I am sorry to have to take so much space on this issue but It is important to know the truth.As Wikipedia points out Climategate has been a watershed moment in turning public opinion against climate science.And that is why as Clive Crook says at the end of his Atlantic article. ” The Big Green Lie (or Delusion ,to be charitable ) isn’t so much that climate change is happening and that it is very likely caused or exacerbated by human activity .The Big Lie is that the Green movement is a source of coherent or responsible counsel about what to do …(The problem ) is the diminished credibility of the claim that we have a problem in the first place.That is why Climategate mattered .And that is why these absurd ” vindications ” of the climate scientists involved also matter.”